


A Soft Place to Land

by floraltohru



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Thunderstorms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 08:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24847123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floraltohru/pseuds/floraltohru
Summary: Yuki doesn't like being alone when it's dark.
Relationships: Kuragi Machi/Sohma Yuki
Comments: 21
Kudos: 125





	A Soft Place to Land

The deep gray of the late evening sky matches Machi's favorite sweater, and she tugs it on along with her softest pair of pajama pants when she realizes the clouds are playing herald to an epic thunderstorm. 

She fixes herself a cup of tea in the mug with the broken off handle and settles into the secondhand couch, worrying at a loose thread of her sweater and trying to muster up the stamina to do her homework. But there's a whole (annoying) process before she can get started; she'll have to excavate her bag from the mess of her bedroom and then dig around inside for her worksheets and, god help her, a pen. All told, Machi would rather just sit with her tea and listen to the distant rumble of thunder and the rain starting to trickle down her windows than do anything remotely productive. 

Machi closes her eyes and leans back into the lumpy couch cushions, trying to remain mindful of the fact that she's likely to fall asleep to the sound of the storm outside if she stays like this. The wind picks up and the thunder is closer now, and every so often she can see the imprint of lightning on her eyelids, splashed through the window and around the walls. 

She jolts upward when someone thumps on her front door. It's probably her neighbor, a nosy single woman in her forties who has clearly noticed that Machi lives all by herself and assumed her role as a distant surrogate mother. 

It's not Hirata-san. 

"What are you doing here?" Machi asks. Anyone else might think it rude, but Machi knows her impromptu guest will understand the sentiment. 

"Freezing," Yuki says. "Can I come in?" 

He's pale in the flickering light outside her door, he's drenched, and he's not even wearing a coat. 

Machi yanks him over the threshold, and she's half tempted to give him a good dressing down for walking over like that in this downpour, but then she notices that his eyes are rimmed with red and he's sniffling slightly. 

"Hi," she says into his shoulder after throwing her arms around him with no regard for how soaked his shirt is. He's stiff for a moment before he relaxes into her embrace. "You should change," she tells him at last, but he's slow to break away. "You'll catch a cold."

Yuki keeps shaking even once he's sitting on her couch in the set of spare clothes he keeps tucked in one corner of her drawer. It's the first time he's had the chance to use them.

"Are you okay?" Machi asks when she returns with a towel for his dripping hair. Yuki starts to reach for it, but his hands are trembling, so she brushes him aside. Where her knees graze his, she feels her skin prickle, electric. 

"I'm fine," he says after a moment, but he lets her run the towel over his hair anyway. "You don't have to do that."

"I'm done anyway," she says. Reluctant to move, she threads her fingers through his hair. 

Machi lets out a soft gasp when Yuki pulls her into his lap, then buries his face in the crook of her neck. His nose is cold against the blazing warmth of her skin, especially as a blush rushes to the surface. 

"Yuki?" She brings her hand back to the soft silvery hair at the nape of his neck, stroking lightly. 

"I'm okay," he mumbles into her neck. Machi isn't sure who he's trying to convince.

"We can talk about it," she says. "But we don't have to."

"The power went out at home," he says slowly. "And Tohru has been patching up some of the paint in the kitchen."

Darkness. Paint fumes. 

At least this time, Machi didn't have to break the door down with a school-issued chair. 

Sometimes she thinks about the way it felt in her hands, heavy and cold. She remembers the way the force of it all shot back into her arms when she slammed it into the door, the way her hands tingled for the rest of the day. She can still hear the heavy cracking noise of the door bursting open, flooding the closet with light, and she can’t forget that the room smelled of paint fumes, the scent lingering even a few hours later. 

Yuki curls deeper into her embrace. "No one else is home. Can I stay here?" 

"Of course." 

"Thanks." He toys absently with the hem of her sweater, his body gradually warming under hers. 

It's the subtle kind of comfort that Machi could slumber in; Yuki often teases her for the fact that she can never stay awake when they sit down to watch a movie. Maybe someday when she's feeling a little bit bolder, she'll tell him that it only ever seems to happen when he's around. 

Or maybe not. It might just inflate his ego, and he's already a bastard. 

"Machi?" 

She blinks her eyes open to find that she's curled up on the couch with Yuki kneeling on the floor next to her. 

"How did you move me?" she asks, her tongue heavy. And how long was she asleep? The dim blue-gray light from the window has been replaced with almost pitch-darkness, and as another crack of thunder rolls through, Machi is surprised it didn’t wake her first.

Yuki chuckles, resting his chin in his hand. Even though it's dark in her living room now, she's spent enough time looking at him that her mind can fill in most of the blanks. He's inches from her face, and her stomach dips when it strikes her that this fond look in his eyes is for her and her alone. "You're a heavy sleeper." 

"Oh." She runs her tongue over her teeth, her mouth like sandpaper. "I'm thirsty. Can you turn on the light?" 

"No." 

"No?" 

"Your power went out while you were asleep."

"Oh. Are you alright?" She tries to study his face in the dark, pressing a hand to his cheek when she's not confident enough in the bare shapes she's able to make out. 

"Yes, thank you." He turns inward, brushing his lips against the velvety center of her wrist. It feels very princely, but she knows him better than that.

She's no longer in danger of swooning like a Victorian romance protagonist every time they touch, but Machi is thankful it's too dark to see the fierce blush she knows has taken over her cheeks. 

"We should light some candles," Yuki says. "For romantic ambience."

And because the dark sets him on edge, Machi thinks, and reminds him of a black room he's only mentioned in passing but promised to tell her about when he's ready. 

Machi has black rooms of her own. She doesn't mind waiting. 

"Sure," she murmurs, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. She does her best to avoid slamming her shins into the coffee table as she inches her way to the kitchen. Candles would be kept in there, she's pretty sure, but her system of organization is actually meticulously calibrated in the opposite direction, so it's really hard to say. 

As she leans forward to grope for one of the cabinets, Machi’s forehead smashes into Yuki's chin. 

"Yuki," she chastises. "Watch where you're going." 

"It's dark," he says lamely. “And you were the one moving.” 

"Here." She fishes around in the dark for his hand, then keeps hunting for her candles and matches with him in tow. 

She doesn’t let go until the two of them are back on the couch and she needs both hands to light the candles she found. In her now-cold mug of tea, she can see the reflection of dancing, flickering flames. 

Yuki puts an arm around her shoulder and pulls her close, pressing a warm kiss to her temple. “Feeling well-rested?” he asks, and Machi is glad he’s comfortable enough to return to his lighthearted ribbing. 

“Very,” she says. 

“Are you going to be up all night?” 

“Only if you keep me awake,” she says, elbowing him in the side. 

“That sounds like a challenge.” 

“Whatever.” Machi leans into him, careful not to fall asleep again. 

She’s lying with her head in his lap and his hand gently stroking her hair when a mechanical whir and the rapid illumination of her living room signals that the power has returned to her apartment. Machi stops mid-sentence, abandoning her story about Kimi and Momiji’s recent antics during their math class. 

“I guess the worst of it’s over,” Yuki says. He blows out the candles methodically, and Machi watches as thin wisps of smoke curl into the air. 

She takes her cold tea into the kitchen and dumps it into the sink, then meticulously balances the mug on top of the stack of dishes she needs to wash. She’ll get them in the morning, she tells herself, even though she knows it’s a lie. 

“Should we head to bed?” Machi asks when she returns to her living room. 

“Sit with me for a while longer,” Yuki says, pulling her back down onto the couch. “I like it here with you.” 

Machi supposes she can humor him for a few minutes more.

They fall asleep with the lights on.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @floraltohru on tumblr come say hi


End file.
